Finders Keepers (Mill Brook Book 1)

by Carla Neggers

  Before her cheeks could flush crimson—not from embarrassment, but from awareness—she pulled her head back from over the railing. Even with him downstairs on the couch, it was going to be close quarters.

  Which maybe was the whole idea behind his invitation.

  Dinner was roast turkey breast, baby carrots, salad, French bread and baked apples. Julian explained he was a decent basic cook but left the gourmet recipes to his friends who were starting up the Silver Goblets Restaurant. They were going to be out later in the week; perhaps they could cook a meal for them.

  “Every time they cook here, though,” he said, “they destroy my kitchen—but all in a good cause.”

  “How’s work on the Danvers House going?” Holly refused to call it the Silver Goblets Restaurant; it demeaned her great-grandfather.

  ‘‘Slowly. T ve decided to bring in outside help or we’ll never get the place done. I have just so much time with work at the sawmill, that place and chasing you around.”

  She pursed her lips. “You don’t have to chase me.”

  He regarded her over the rim of his wineglass. “Maybe I want to.”

  “How long have you lived out here?”

  “Change the subject, huh? Okay. About ten years.”

  “Always alone?”

  ‘‘More or less.”

  “Then you’ve never married?”

  He grinned at her blunt question. “Is this a storyteller’s curiosity at work?”

  “I suppose. What else could it be?”

  “I’ll spare you this time and not answer that. No, I’ve never been married. I came close once—about the time I was building this place, as a matter of fact. Fortunately I figured out before the wedding date that Isabel’s main attraction to me was the challenge of trying to reform me. Being a Stiles and a Danvers and an alumnus of both Mill Brook Academy and Williams College, I was supposed to exhibit a certain ‘refinement’ that she considered lacking in me. But I am what I am.”

  “Aren’t we all? Did she specify what she intended to reform?”

  “I was supposed to give up living in the woods, move to a big white house with black shutters on Old Mill Brook Common and establish myself as the ‘brains’ of Mill Brook Post and Beam and make Adam stick to the “brawn.”

  “Adam doesn’t strike me as being a dummy,” Holly said.

  “He’s not.”

  “And I don’t think you’re lacking in the brawn department, either.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “I’ve never gone in for the idea that a woman’s job is to change a man—or vice versa. Falling in love can change people’s lives, obviously, but to go into it with specific goals in mind—with a list, for heaven’s sake. That strikes me as pretty arrogant. And I don’t see men as necessarily wild and untamed creatures, do you? Anyway, I wouldn’t fall in love with one that was.”

  “Who would you fall in love with?” he asked huskily.

  “If I had a shopping list of qualities for the man I want, I’d be as bad as the woman who takes any man and tries to mold him into her image of the perfect man. That doesn’t interest me. I’m more interested in getting to know people as they are, letting change occur naturally, not forcing it. If I fall in love, I fall in love. If I don’t—I have a pretty full life.”

  He leaned back in his chair across from her, the night-darkened woods through the undraped windows serving as a backdrop. “That strikes me as solid thinking.”

  “Solid thinking and one’s emotions don’t always go hand in hand.” Take you, for example, she thought. Solid thinking tells me I shouldn’t be within miles of here—but where am I?

  “How true,” he said.

  “It’s easy to get involved with someone whose lifestyle and attitudes don’t blend with yours and never will. I had a relationship with a guy once—way back when—whose idea of my being a storyteller was that I’d tell bedtime stories to a half-dozen of our wee bumpkins to send them off to dreamland.”

  Julian added more wine to her glass, then to his. “He didn’t see you as a professional?”

  “I work weird hours, I’m on the road a lot and in those days I wasn’t earning much money. It looked like a nice hobby to him. Storytelling isn’t the most certain profession in the world. But I was making my own way, and I had ideas about where I wanted to go with my career—which, by the way, is pretty much where I am now. He just assumed I wasn’t all that serious.”

  “That would be irritating, I’m sure.” Julian drank some wine; the Mose Allison song had ended, leaving the house in that all-encompassing silence. “What about children—you’re not interested in having any?”

  “No, I am. And I’d love to tell them bedtime stories. But I don’t like having my life dictated to me. I need to figure things out for myself, especially about my work—it’s such a part of who I am.”

  “That’s fairly obvious,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was referring to her tales about lost puppies and whatnot or if he was beginning to see her for who she was.

  She went on quickly, “Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for compromise and change.”

  “Both of which can be painful.”

  “In the short term, maybe. I think change always hurts in a way. That doesn’t automatically make it bad.

  If you get too stuck in your ways, you turn to stone. You get mean. Bored.”

  Julian smiled, somewhat skeptically. “From what I gather, you’re never in one place long enough to get stuck in any particular way.”

  “Maybe wandering’s the way I’m stuck in,” she said, getting up with her wine and going over to the fire. “When I was little my father was in the military and we moved all around. Then my mother died when I was ten and we moved around some more, just the two of us, drifting. My Grandpa Wingate got sick of me getting carted from one place to another, so I ended up going to live with him. My father got a job on an oil rig and was gone for long periods—I just stayed with Grandpa.”

  “Where’s your father now?”

  “Still in Texas. He retires in a couple of years. He’s got a woman friend now, someone who understands him— someone he understands. They just let each other be. Grandpa died five years ago. I guess I’ll always miss him.”

  Julian brought out the baked apples, and they ate them sitting on the floor by the fire. The dogs had better manners than to beg.

  “You’re an intriguing woman,” Julian said. “I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”

  She grinned at him. “But?”

  “But I don’t know what the hell you’re up to.”

  “Ask me.”

  “No way. I’m not putting you on the spot. Whenever I apply a little pressure, your imagination clicks into high gear. I don’t want any more stories. You can tell me what’s going on when you’re ready.”

  “Julian...”

  “Don’t, Holly. No protests. I told you: no pressure. You’re a guest in my house. It’s not polite for me to make you lie—and don’t tell me you haven’t lied because you know you have. So let’s just call a truce for now.”

  She sighed. “All right, but I’d argue your assumptions.”

  “You’d argue anything, I do believe.”

  Only with a Danvers-Stiles. “I’ll just leave it at that. If you don’t object, I’ve got a few things I’d like to do, so I’ll just go on upstairs. Is there anything you need?”

  He looked at her, but his expression was unreadable. “Nothing I can’t get in the morning.”

  “Thanks for dinner.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and she could feel him watching her as she headed upstairs. It was just nine o’clock, but she didn’t know what else to do. Play cards? Put on more Mose Allison? The truth was, she wasn’t ready to talk openly. Julian Stiles seemed to be fishing around, half jousting with her, half toying with an offer of friendship. In a way, she would have liked to have everything out in the open, but that seemed too risky. He could just boot her out. She could hardly blame
him if he wanted to. Or he could tell her he agreed with her, could appreciate her claim to the goblets and the “tales” that had resulted because of it. And then what?

  Better to keep Julian guessing.

  It was not a way of managing him, she admitted, but of keeping him alert and interested. Of keeping him on her tail.

  An honest, heart-to-heart talk with the man could spell the end to the elusive, tenuous relationship they had. For now, it was safer just to keep things as they were.

  But frustrating.

  She popped her head over the railing and told him she’d sit up and read for a while, then hit the sack.

  ‘‘Let me know,” he said, looking from his position in front of the fire, “if you need more blankets.”

  Yeah, right. Then he could come upstairs and tuck her in.

  The thought was enough to make her hardly notice how frigid the sheets were when she climbed into bed.

  The howling wind and the sounds of snow smacking up against the windows woke Holly from a troubled sleep. She inhaled sharply at the shock of not knowing where she was. But she held the breath, not letting it come out in a panicked cry, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the sturdy, pleasant lines of Julian’s loft bedroom.

  She listened for his breathing. Would he snore?

  But she heard only the wind, and finally, unable to roll over and go back to sleep, she crept out from under his down comforter and peered over the railing.

  There was no light on downstairs, but she could make out his silhouette in the window, looking out at the snowy, predawn landscape. He gave no indication he was aware of her presence. Her heart pounded; it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it. She wanted to say something—to go to him.

  He seemed so very alone.

  Yet if she padded downstairs now, she knew they would come back up together. They would make love. The snow, the wind, the isolation and silence of the place—they’d all have their effect. It would seem as if the rest of the world, the goblets, the lies, the impossibility of a wanderer and a mountain man loner having any future together, didn’t matter. They would have to wake up in the cold light of dawn and realize those things did matter, that their isolation was only temporary, and no escape. Would it make a difference, though, if they woke up in each other’s arms?

  You’re tired, she told herself. Dreaming.

  Or just too cautious.

  She started to call down to him, started to tiptoe over to the stairs. But she stopped herself, slipping back to bed, under the covers where it wasn’t as warm as she remembered on awakening.

  After a while, she heard his footfall and his deep sigh as he lowered himself onto the couch, and she wondered if he went to sleep right away, or lay awake, thinking, as long as she did.

  Her sanity returned with morning. Scrambling out of bed, she all but collapsed with relief that she had resisted tempting Julian’s hormones last night—not to mention her own. She had enough troubles as it was. She peeked over the railing and saw he’d vacated the couch. In other words, the coast was clear. She trotted downstairs.

  “Wow.” she said, going to the windows in the dining area, “look at that snow.”

  That was precisely what Julian was doing. He was in jeans, but his flannel shirt was untucked and he wasn’t wearing shoes. There was something disconcertingly sexy about a man in stocking feet. His hair was tousled, his square jaw unshaved. He looked as if he’d passed a bad night.

  “It’s still coming down,” he pointed out, unnecessarily.

  “How many inches would you say it’s snowed already? I didn’t notice how much was on the ground to begin with.”

  “Eight inches at least. I’d say we’ll get a good twelve, fourteen by the time the storm’s finished.” He glanced at her, taking in the men’s red flannel nightshirt she’d picked up for her stay in New England. It was toasty warm and distinctly unsexy. “That’s quite a getup.”

  “It’s warm.”

  “I’ll bet. You don’t look as if you’re in a hurry to get anywhere.”

  “I’m not, but don’t you have to be at the sawmill?”

  He shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s Monday morning. I’ve got some calls to make, but I can do that from here. Everything else can wait. Adam’ll gripe about it, but he and Beth can cover for me. I do it for him whenever one of the kids is sick. I’d cover for Beth anytime she wants, but she’s as bad a workaholic as Adam. She just won’t admit it.”

  “You’re not as driven?”

  “I’m not as single-minded about the sawmill. Buying the academy was my idea, for instance—and it’s going to eat up a hell of a lot of my time. I’ve just never been your basic nine-to-five type.”

  ‘That I can relate to,” she said. “So you’ll go in late?”

  “If at all.”

  She licked her lips at the prospect of being snowbound with him for the day. “Aren’t you going to plow?”

  “When the snow stops,” he said, eyeing her with amusement.

  “But that might not be for hours.”

  “Might not.”

  “Julian!”

  He laughed. “Don’t look so trapped. We’ll have fun.” He draped an arm over her shoulder, brotherlike. “Tell me, Holly Wingate Paynter of Houston, Texas, have you ever shoveled a foot of snow?”

  Chapter Eight

  Lucky her—Julian had two shovels. They went out after their bowls of oatmeal—they were saving the sweet rolls—and tackled the steps, the walks and the area in front of the garage. It was fine, powdery snow, no good for making snowballs. But Holly tried anyway. When she emptied her shovel, the wind would blow the snow back into her face, which never seemed to happen to Julian. He also never seemed to get snow down his neck or up his sleeves. He had given her gum shoes one look and shaken his head, but she’d worn two pairs of socks and her feet were doing all right.

  She figured they’d shovel for a little while, then go inside for coffee and sweet rolls.

  That wasn’t how Julian figured it. Once he got started, he had to finish. It made sense to wait until the snow had stopped to plow, he explained, but shoveling you could keep at right through the storm; it was easier on the back. So he wanted to get everything shoveled this time out, and he’d come back later and shovel the last few inches from the storm. It was a sensible enough idea. It just took forever to accomplish.

  At least to Holly.

  “The snow’s light, and despite your inexperience doing this kind of work, your help makes a difference,” Julian told her. “This is going pretty quick.”

  She’d hate to be around for wet, heavy snow.

  He caught her catching snowflakes on her tongue. “It’s easier to drink a glass of water.”

  “That’s not nearly as romantic.”

  “I don’t know what’s romantic about eating snow,” he said.

  The man was impossible. She got back to work.

  “Hope I don’t turn into an ice block before we get this job done,” she muttered.

  “If you do,” he said, very close behind her, “I promise I’ll take care to warm you up slowly.”

  Imagining countless scenarios of being warmed up by one Julian Danvers Stiles, Holly warned herself that drops in body temperature could bring on muddled thinking. She had no business imagining anything but where to dump her next shovelful of snow.

  She couldn’t resist.

  He was standing in front of her, so businesslike, so Yankee smug and efficient with his shovel and watch cap and leather gloves and L.L. Bean boots. Snow was just snow to him.

  “What the hell-Just as he bent down to tackle another virgin area, Holly gave her shovel a well-practiced jerk and watched the heap of snow fly over his strong, solid back.

  He yelled something that sounded rather uncensored to her and whipped around with a murderous look. Snow had blown onto his face and clung to his eyebrows.

  “Whoops,” she said, laughing. “My arms are getting weak from all this hefting. I couldn’t contro
l the shovel.”

  “You lying little...”

  She didn’t stick around for the rest, but dived back toward the house. Mountain man that he was, he caught up with her in no time. He grabbed her around the middle and hauled her into a deep drift near the kitchen window.

  “Julian, don’t you dare. I’ve never been in snow this deep.”

  He ignored her protests and heave-hoed her into the drift. She landed on her back, surprised at the snow’s softness, the way it cushioned her fall. Relaxing, she spread-eagled and laughed up at him. He was breathing hard, laughing with her.

  “Have you ever made a snow angel?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  He dropped onto his back into an untouched area of snow and, with his arms straight, brought them from his hips up and out over his head and back down, making angel wings. Keeping his legs straight, he brought them out to the sides, making the base of the angel. Holly sat up, watching in amazement. He looked like a little kid.

  “There,” he said, standing.

  In the snow was the impression of one man-sized angel. Holly found herself a spot and dropped carefully, imitating his movements. If not for the cold wind and the snow in her face, she could have lain there all day, it was so comfortable.

  Her angel was a little lopsided, but definitely recognizable. Holly was pleased with the results.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Freezing—but I’m sweating, too. Doesn’t make sense.”

  Magnanimously, he agreed that they could go inside. They peeled off their snowy outer clothes and hung them on a long Shaker pegboard in the entry.

  “Your cheeks are rosy,” Holly told him.

  He tapped her cheek with one knuckle. “So are yours.”

  She started to put on a kettle, but he shooed her out of the kitchen, handing her an afghan. “You’re not used to this kind of weather—you’d better get warmed up.”

  Wrapping up in the heavy afghan, she sat by the fire while he stirred the blazing red coals and added another hunk of wood. Then he muttered something about heating up some cider and went into the kitchen. Holly poked her stockinged feet close to the flames. She could hear Julian opening the kitchen door, and in a moment the two dogs were brushing their icy fur against her, trying to take her spot in front of the fire. Julian called them off with an unintelligible growl, but they seemed to understand. They gave her some room.